The modern Western cogito rests on conquest and extermination as its precondition

Evidence

The philosopher Enrique Dussel has argued that the ego conquiro was the condition of possibility for Descartes ego cogito, that “I conquer, therefore I am” became the foundation of “I think, therefore I am,” a modus vivendi that characterizes a subject who perceives himself as the center of the world because he has already conquered the world. This foundation is mediated, Dussel tells us, through the ego extermino: “I exterminate, therefore I am.” — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 170

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on the colonial roots of Enlightenment subjectivity — thinks of Tzvetan Todorov on the conquest and the ‘I am’ as colonizing subject.
• DEEPTHINKING: The compression of ‘I think therefore I am’ into ‘I conquer/exterminate therefore I am’ reframes the entire Cartesian foundation as a colonial act — a paradigm-shifting inversion worth sitting with.